This driver’s heading south on Masonic. See what s/he did? S/he “blocked the box” because of carelessness. You gotta look ahead to see if the intersection will clear by the time your light turns red. It’s Da Law. This is what I mean when I say too aggressive.

On the other hand, drivers heading north on Masonic sometimes want to turn left onto Fell. Sometimes these people don’t commit to making the turn by entering the intersection. Instead, they hang back by the crosswalk about 40 feet from where they should be, srlsy. Ppl, you gotta commit to the turn, you gotta be more aggressive.

Note the black lines indicating where the bike lane lines should be, and where they used to be:

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The answer, Gentle Reader, is to the right of the bike lane lines. Which I suppose is in the supposed “door zone.” But I ain’t ever been doored, at least in the conventional* sense, despite the fact that I have much more time on bike in San Francisco than you, yes you, Gentle Reader. I have more time, more miles, more years, more decades on the Streets of San Francisco than you is what I’m saying, sorry.

And I’m leaving plenty of space for others to pass me. So pass me, I don’t care.

New topic: Note the next block, where the SFMTA has decided to allow 90 degree parking to placate the denizens of District 5. I don’t approve of this, for various reasons.

JMO

*Now, I’ve crashed into car doors, sure. Like the time I hit an aging Accord driven by a 16-year-old who thought he could make a turn from McAllister onto Gough at the same time another car was making the same turn. (My left elbow still clicks to this day and it will for the rest of my life oh well.) And I kind of bounced off of a door on McAllister in the PJ’s due to a lady turning into a housing project parking lot from a little bit too far away, IMO, but that was a no harm no foul kind of thing and let’s say that mistakes were made on both sides of that transaction. And I got doored by bouncing off a partially-opened door going uphill on 6th Ave at a very low speed and I’ve gotten doored by passengers getting out of cars on the right side on Market. But I aint ever been doored in the conventional sense.

As this driver just did, loaded up with household goods for a trip back up north to Oregon or Washington or whichever state is named on the license plate.

Thusly:

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What drivers do is get stuck on Market outbound and then they see the No Left signs one after the other, 2nd, New Monty, 3rd, 4th, 5th and then they get frustrated and make a left on 6th Street, as here.

And when you make that kind of move, the cops can see you from all around.

(What we should have are signs saying No Left Turns Next 2 Miles, or something, like what we have on 19th Avenue, an official State Highway.)

Of course, if the driver were on Market heading inbound at this very same intersection, then a right turn would be mandatory and going straight just might get her a ticket as well. The thing about that, tho, is that the chances of getting a ticket for not turning right is way less than 1% but, well, making a left you are just begging for a ticket.

(Which you can just throw away once you get back to home state, if you want, IDK.)

The driver of this car was taking Oak to get back to the Peninsula this afternoon but she ended up flipping her Honda Civic just before Divisadero.

See?

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So as traffic backed up for miles along Oak, the SFPD began its investigation:

The Honda Shadow:

San Francisco’s “Comeback Neighborhood of the Year” is the host of this scene, betwixt abandoned sidewalk sofas and the LaunderLand:

Now I’ll tell you, we were supposed to get a freeway to link up the terminuseses of 101 and 280 with the Golden Gate Bridge, but what we got instead was Fell and Oak with three or four one-way lanes each way timed for 35 MPH. But these days, for various reasons, the Fell/Oak twins don’t play the substitute freeway role as well.

Recently, this intersection at Divis. has become a bottleneck owing to the inefficient* left arrow phase for southbound traffic on Divisadero to allow drivers to get on eastbound Oak. I’m not sure, but this configuration might have confused or upset the Civic driver, who was driving “all squirrelly” near Broderick shortly before this accident.

LBCOT

*Hey, how about a big fat “NO LEFT TURN” sign for southbound drivers on Divisadero? This intersection wasn’t made “for the neighbors,” so there’s no reason for the people who live in this area to have more of a say than those poor, wretched souls who live way out there in the West Bay, you know, the Sunset and the Richmond. This new left turn phase, like the one at Octavia for inbound Market Street drivers, appears to be a sop for DivCo / NoPA / EaPA locals…